


Blue Stars Beneath Gold Words

by sighclops



Category: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-15 06:38:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1295146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sighclops/pseuds/sighclops
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Revan isn't sure what she's expecting when Malak reenters her life. Cue frozen seascapes, big cities, and Dantooine. Always Dantooine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I.

“Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.  
These, our bodies, possessed by light.  
Tell me we'll never get used to it.”  
-Richard Siken, ‘Scheherazade’

;;

This is not a love story. No, rather it’s a story of destruction, of a panic that ebbs as well as it flows, inflates and deflates, like the middle of the night when headlights pass through the window: flashes of light that don’t last, chaos cutting through the calm. And like all panic, it follows a rhythm.

It moves like the tide in the middle of winter and you’re standing on the shore, the frigid air prickling your skin as you watch the heavy and harsh waves crash into the sand. It gets better with each pull, gets worse with each push. The crest of each wave balances between the two, lost to the brisk and salty air as it takes a desperate breath before it goes under again. Where does it push, when does it pull?

And it's always panic, but it can be hushedly told that it’s something else. Anger, passion, fear, light bordering on happiness, maybe even love.

But this is not a love story.

;;

This is how Revan begins to let go:

_Breathing._

She’s breathing, and it’s the only thing she’s sure about at the moment.

She doesn’t know what it means to see stars, not figuratively at least, but she remembers a time when her vision exploded in blank, blinding light, and maybe that’s the closest she’s come. All she sees now is stars, on the flat of her back, on the flat of the roof, and she can hear Talvon next to her, breathing like there’s no pressure to stay alive.

And maybe that’s a little familiar too.

She glances over at him, at the light reflecting in his eyes and across his teeth and she thinks he has bits of the universe inside him, feels like she’s only ten feet beneath the moon. He’s already watching her, expression not unreadable, but she doesn’t want to read it.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks, and it’s such a loaded question, could be answered so many different ways it makes her head spin a little.

Revan presses her lips together for a breath, pauses, and lets her gaze travel back up to the stars. “You tell me.”

“I don’t know,” he says automatically, but makes a noise that makes her think he’s reconsidering it. “Don’t sidetrack me by making me guess.”

The sky is black, not permanent like ink or soft like velvet, but like black smoke blocking out the sun and she doesn’t miss it. She smiles a little as Talvon tugs on her wrist, pulls her into his side before she lets the words fall out. Quiet.

“Kae’s leaving.”

“Again?”

She flicks at his other hand resting on his stomach, tries not to think of her Master’s clear eyes as they said goodbye that morning. She tries not to remember the way Kae braided her hair as if she was a child again, folding the strands over each other like pulling her thoughts back together after they’ve scattered across the floor.

She tries not to remember the room set ablaze with the afternoon sun, the way she felt pale in comparison.

“‘S not funny,” she says when Talvon huffs a quiet laugh.

She glances over at him and his smile falls when his eyes meet hers. “I don’t know what you’re expecting, Rev.”

“To be fair,” she says, her voice is calm, always calm. “I don’t either.”

He shakes his head. “What are we going to do with you?”

She thinks it’s a funny question because she’s always known she’s had a plan, that her destiny was wrapped tight in a box waiting to be opened. She thinks now that it isn’t true, that she doesn’t know what she’s sure of, doesn’t know when this all started and if it’ll ever stop. She doesn’t know if Kae will ever stay for more than three months at a time.

She feels a bit bitter. She wants to laugh for days.

“I’ve been talking to Vrook,” she starts.

Talvon snorts. “Sounds promising.”

“Shut up, he’s nice.”

“I’m sure,” he says, smile not disappearing. “So what did he have to say?”

“Just that he’d help me until Kae comes back. He knows if I wait I won’t be Knighted any time soon,” she says, eyes full of stars. She wishes thick lines of clouds would roll in, turn the sky that hazy shade of light, heavy and full of winter as the darkness burns until it bleeds pale. She wants to be covered in snow and listen to their heartbeats in the heavy silence. She wants that more than anything.

Talvon adjusts his hand on her back, oblivious to her thoughts. “That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?” he asks. “Give the rest of us a chance to catch up.”

“Yeah I’m sure you’d love that.”

“I would, actually,” he says, “you’ll leave and I’ll be here pretending that I don’t hate my life.”

She smiles, keeps her eyes fixed to the moon. “Well _maybe_ if you worked a little harder.”

“You know that’s not true,” he says, and she doesn’t think anything of it at first. “You’re different...or whatever it is the Council is always raging on about.”

And she has to remember to breathe. “I don’t want to talk about this,” she says, and her voice is quiet but still strong.

Always strong.

Minutes pass without a word spoken and Talvon is steady beside her. She listens to his heart drumming away in his chest, listens to the quiet of the night and she thinks she’s okay, that she can breathe without the notion that any minute she could choke. Asphyxiation is not the most comforting thought.

Neither is being alone.

Talvon shifts after a while, his torso arching back a bit and in the process jostling her to the side. She pouts up at him but his smile is easy on his too wide lips, and she’s okay, she’s okay, she’s okay.

“Kae will come back,” he says, and she nods because she knows. She knows now but doesn’t know if there’ll be a time when she won’t.

“I know.”

And that’s the last they talk for a while.

And she’s okay.

;;

Revan wakes to honey-colored light falling backwards through the window. She wakes to warm sheets and a wrinkled pillowcase. She wakes to the sound of nothingness, the silence of early morning brought on by the sun angled too bright, too soon for her to be awake. Her eyes are wide and she doesn't want them to be, wants to swim in the room of honey, a dreamy haze of dust and sunlight.

And then she wakes to harsh sound rapping against her door.

She groans before she swings her legs over the edge of the bed, the cold press of the floor is jarring to her still sleepy state of mind. Pushing her hands over her face and through her hair, she takes each step gingerly, trying to balance the sound of her door and her bare feet against cold tile.

Loose fingers grasp the handle and the sun reaches Talvon before she gets the chance to. It’s only a moment that she’s watching him, the strange glint of his eyes and the lack of a smile, but his voice breaks the silence.

“Let’s go,” he says.

“Where?”

He just shakes his head, pushing the door closed with him behind it. Left alone in her room, she bites her lip as she presses her ear to the door, can feel the weight of him on the other side.

If she closes her eyes she can almost feel him when he speaks. “Just get changed, we’re going out,” he says, and she moves back into her room, away from the shadows and into the honey light, into leggings and a clean robe that smells vaguely of kolto and detergent.

It’s comforting.

She meets him outside the door once more, he’s leaning against the wall opposite and his eyes crinkle when she glances over at him. “Ready?”

“Where are we going?” she asks again, maybe because it’s early, maybe because they don’t do this, or maybe it’s because once they’re out in the early morning air he grabs her hand, locking their fingers together. Secure.

He just shakes his head again. “I can’t tell you.”

“ _Talvon_.”

“My lips are sealed,” he says, miming a zipper over his lips, turning the key and throwing it over his shoulder. He’s so dumb but she likes him so much.

She shakes her head, focuses on the way her eyes are still adjusting to the brightness of the sky. The clouds have yet to roll in and the grass is still wet, somewhere in the back of Revan’s mind it registers that maybe life will never get any better than this exact moment.

Talvon squeezes her hand before he lets go, settling down into what seems to be a random spot of grass and she raises a brow before joining him, legs stretched out and arms supporting her from behind. Her robes are damp from the earth below her but she can’t bring herself to care, can only watch as the pale sky ignites beneath the sun.

“Is this all?” she asks.

He laughs. “The sun is rising and you ask me if that’s all. You know there’s no guarantee that it’ll ever happen again, right? This could be the last one, Rev.”

She smiles but it makes her feel a little sad, makes her want to soak up the last little bits of it until she’s nothing but light. She shakes her head. “Then it’s an awful good one.”

They’re quiet as the pale light is replaced by pink yellow, pink purple, pink blue. They’re quiet until Revan’s stomach breaks the calm, crying out in a hunger she wishes she didn’t have. Talvon laughs at her but he helps her up, shakes his head as she attempts to wipe most of the grass and dirt off the backs of her leggings.

“Come _on_ ,” he says and he reaches for her hand again, she doesn’t know when that became a thing.

He lets go at the first sign of people. She pretends she doesn’t notice.

The cafeteria is already charged with the morning’s energy. She puts a hand on Talvon’s shoulder to steer him in the right direction of their table where Cariaga is already seated. Revan returns the smiles offered at her but it wears a bit thin when she notices Nisotsa in her peripheral.

And Revan likes Cariaga, honestly she does. She loves her quiet humor and the way she doesn’t need to always say something to fill the quiet. Revan thinks that peace must emanate off of her at all times, a lot different from herself but it makes spending time together that much better.

She likes her so much.

So Revan really doesn’t understand why she associates herself so well with the likes of Nisotsa.

 _I’ve known her since I was four, Rev_ , doesn’t sit well with her, but then again neither does, _she’s just a bit misunderstood_.

It’s been a while, she thinks, so it shouldn’t make a difference now. It doesn’t help, though, that Nisotsa’s pointedly not looking at Revan, instead watching Talvon with her narrowed gaze and Revan just wants to laugh. It’s already ridiculous.

Talvon looks between them, brief but she catches him, and his voice is normal but his eyes are bright beneath the artificial lights mixing with the sun. “How are you guys this morning?”

Cariaga nods, but Nisotsa’s smile is blinding. “Did you hear the news?”

“No?” Talvon prods.

“Kavar just got cleared for his first Padawan.”

Revan squints her eyes against the sun, looks down at the table where the specks of color blur together and sit sour in her vision. She puts her hand over them and looks up at Nisotsa. “And you want it to be you, that’s cool, Ni.”

“Revan I’m nineteen years old, of course I don’t—”

“Oi, you do,” Talvon adds. “Come on, Nisotsa, let’s be a bit reasonable here.”

She just rolls her eyes. “Will you ever grow up, Tal?”

Revan can feel the words drag at the corners of her lips, glances over at Talvon who’s smiling like he’s discovered he’s going to live forever. “I will when you do, babe.”

Revan exhales, but it sounds more like a laugh than a breath. She shakes her head, moves her fingers across the table before she stands. “I’m going to get some tea, anyone want anything?”

She doesn’t get much of a response from any of them, so she moves across the sun streaked cafeteria, keeps moving until her hands are warm, surrounding a cup of tea and somehow that makes everything brighter.

She doesn’t really consider going back until she senses Cariaga beside her, glances over to see wide eyes watching her, apologetic smile sitting on her lips.

“Are you okay?” she asks, stepping closer until Revan can make out the darker rings of her irises. They blink, echoing mediums of brown until they open again.

Revan smiles. “Of course, why?”

“Well it’s just...you know, I worry about you and Ni.”

“Don’t,” she answers, lowering her eyes past steam and chipped paint to watch the last of the milk fade into her tea. It’s still spinning slowly from her spoon, winding down and slowing to a stop. One more pull. “Everything is sunshine, Cariaga. Come on, let’s go back.”

Cariaga’s eyes narrow before she nods and Revan links their arms together until Talvon’s frown is visible. He looks up at Revan and a smile washes over his face like rain. She pretends that it isn’t meant for her.

She sits down.

;;

The training rooms are a bit stuffy now that summer is fully settling in. Revan focuses on breathing in the warm, heavy air instead of Vrook sitting aside her, his back straight as he fiddles with her lightsaber on the workbench, a _shouldn’t you be doing this_ falling from his lips every few moments. She smiles at him whenever he glances up at her, but he only rolls his eyes and goes back to work.

She likes him, she honestly does.

“Vrook?” she asks.

He makes a noncommittal noise but after setting aside one of the tools in his hands he looks over at her. She takes that as a cue to continue.

First she takes a breath.

“How are you?”

His hands stop moving for the slightest of moments, his brow crinkling but he goes right back to work. “What do you actually want, Revan?”

“No, honestly, how are you? You know, in the grand scheme of things. You okay? Doing alright?”

She cheers for herself silently when he smiles and this time his hands stop completely. He shakes his head a little. “I’m doing rather well, I’d say. And you?”

“Fine, fine,” she clips. “A bit worried, you know.”

He raises a brow. “About?”

“Well I mean, my status amongst the Jedi Order can’t be too secure, right? I’d like to be Knighted sooner rather than later, but I’m not sure how that’s going to be possible with Kae gone. No offense to you, Vrook, but you’re not my Master.”

“Revan,” he starts, drawing a heavy sigh, “it will happen. Don’t concern yourself with the timing of it. I know Master Kae leaving isn’t the best situation but it will be resolved, practice a bit of patience in the meantime.”

 _Resolved_. She doesn’t like that word.

She quirks her lips to the side, traces her eyes along the clean lines of the workbench. “Okay,” she says, “but the Council doesn’t see me differently, right?”

His eyes soften only slightly and it sends a weird ping in her stomach, makes her ache a little bit inside and out. He shakes his head again. “You can’t control these circumstances, and all we can consider is you as an individual.”

The walls sit heavy along the edges of her vision, crowd her in as she watches Vrook’s rough and aged hands move along the shell of her lightsaber. “Vrook?” she prods.

His eyes lift from where he’s gone back to work, soft around the edges. She doesn’t understand what other people see in him.

“Yes?”

“What are your thoughts on the balance between both sides of the Force?”

His brows furrow for a long moment, eyes turned curious as he watches her. “Why?” he asks.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” she says. “That’s all.”

“And what have you been thinking?”

She pauses and forgets to think carefully, her thoughts bleed together like paint in murky water when she lets them go. “Well,” she starts, “Kae says that if you’re only drawing on the light you can’t really reach your full potential, that there’s no way you can be complete. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have to draw on the dark, but if you can understand those emotions like fear and anger, then you’ll be able to more easily let them go. Does that sound right?”

Revan watches his hands creep up the shell of her lightsaber, his lips pulled tight and his brows stay furrowed. It’s a long moment between them in which Vrook doesn’t say anything.

It’s the first time she considers that maybe she’s wrong, that maybe Kae is wrong and she honestly doesn’t know what to make of that.

“Okay,” is what Vrook says, “I think that’ll be enough for today.”

She wants to argue, ask why because she wants a definitive answer for once. She wants to know so many things, but all she says is, “Tomorrow, then.”

He nods, handing her back her lightsaber, her smile faint as the familiar shape fills the cracks of her palms. She watches him leave, breathes in the stuffy air.

One breath, one push.

;;

This is how Revan’s future changes for good:

Thoughts of Vrook still race around her mind as she walks through the halls of the Enclave. Her focus runs between remembering the crinkle of his brow and watching her steps as she stretches between the sunspots along the tiled floor.

She moves across the shadows and into trails of dust floating around her. Warmth surrounds her and she feels like she’s floating away, that the dust isn’t dust at all, but stars splattered across the galaxy and she’s at the center of it all. She’s not really sure what that’s supposed to mean, but it feels important.

She get’s so caught up in the feeling of light and warmth that she doesn’t even realize she’s knocked into someone until she pulls back to apologize and oh—

He’s tall. He’s very, very tall.

His gaze is wide and intense, his clear eyes blink after a moment’s hesitation and soon a slow smile creeps onto his lips. “Revan,” he says, and his voice is so much deeper but still so slow.

She nods, her brows are raised but all her eyes can do is roam over his smooth skin, pale tattoos tracing his scalp just the same. She wants to say something, tries to form words but all she can do is huff out an awkward laugh.

A short moment passes before his eyes catch hers and his smile shifts. “Do you remember me?” he asks.

Does she remember him? _Does she remember him?_

She remembers everything. She remembers dimples and wide, straight smiles, the slow and steady lilt of his voice and the sharp bark of his laugh. She remembers late nights watching holovids that didn’t mean anything, but she remembers feeling like _she_ did. She remembers red and gold, red and gold, red and gold, the loss of control and so much bloody, brilliant red.

She knows the thick white line crossing her lips better than she knows her own voice..

She knows how it feels to not be the best.

Of course she remembers him.

“Malak,” she says. It’s all she says.

“It’s good to see you,” he says, his voice still slow. “‘S been a while, yeah?”

“If you consider five years a while.”

He smiles, and all she can see are dimples and blue. Everything is blue.

“We were only thirteen,” he says, and she can _feel_ it. Chaos and calm cut through her as she tries to keep the sun-choked smile on her lips. One more push, one more pull.

And she doesn’t know what to say. She doesn’t know Malak anymore. The tall stranger before her is just a stranger, not the young boy that made her bleed. He’s nothing, he’s nothing, he’s nothing.

So she nods. “Yeah, we were.”

There’s an awkward lull in which they both watch each other, lost between conversations they’ve had and the ones they didn’t get the chance to have. She’s better than this, she thinks, she knows that there isn’t anything there anymore. He’s lost to the panels of glass and light blinking through. He doesn’t matter, he doesn’t matter, he doesn’t matter.

“So what are you doing back on Dantooine?” she asks, she doesn’t mean for it to sound like she wishes he wasn’t here.

She doesn’t, really.

His wide eyes don’t change though, the fondness and hint of a smile still lingers. “Zhar wanted to take a break from Coruscant. He thought I could use some quiet to prepare to be Knighted and get my plans together for after.”

“Busy guy,” is all she says.

He shrugs. “I guess, you?”

“Busy? Nope, not me. Just standing in the hallway, you know, trying to remember what I had for breakfast this morning.”

His sharp laugh is just the same. “And?”

“Just tea.”

“Ah,” he says, and she thinks he’s only pretending to take it seriously. “But I meant what are you up to, you know, as a whole?”

“Well, not much, I don’t suppose. Hoping to get Knighted soon as well, but don’t tell Vrook that. He thinks I still need him to adjust my lightsaber crystal and I don’t have the heart to tell him otherwise.”

She sends him a wink and he huffs out another guffaw. It isn’t endearing. It’s not.

“I should probably get going, Malak,” she says right when he goes to say something more. “I suppose I’ll be seeing you around though?”

He nods. “I hope so.”

She nods too, moving past him and into the next sunspot she’s been eyeing for the better part of their conversation. She wants to pretend she can’t sense him lingering, that she doesn’t notice the way he makes no effort to move. In her focus she hesitates, so she turns to face him once more, his expectant eyes meet hers and she feels so unlike herself.

“Revan,” is all he says.

She raises a brow, pretends that she’s completely calm though her hands tucked behind her back would say otherwise. Her lips part. “Yes?”

“I’m glad you’re still here.”

Her smile is heavy but she offers it to him anyways. He’s blue, everything is so, so blue.

She doesn’t say anything else, but the way his eyes crinkle tell her that she probably doesn't have to. She doesn’t know how you’re supposed to talk to someone you were close with when you were a kid, doesn’t know if the sun is blinding her or if Malak is slowly disappearing beneath dust and shadows.

She turns and listens to the sound of her boots against the tiled floors.

;;

“Ow!”

Talvon looks up at her with betrayal in his eyes, thumb running over his arm where her hand still lingers.

“What the hell was that for?” he asks.

“Did you know that Malak is back?”

His face twists and falls, and she pulls in a deep breath as he squints back up at her, only one word left between his lips. “Malak?”

“Malak,” she repeats. “Please tell me you remember Malak.”

A slow smile softens his expression, eyes slanting away as he dissolves into laughter, quick air flitting in and out as he tries to compose himself.

“What?” she asks.

“I’m sorry,” he says, still trying to control his laugh. “But you’re kidding me, right? I look at you every day, Rev.”

She resists the way her eyes want to roll, instead looking up from where he’s sitting. The plains are unnaturally quiet while the sun begins to melt into the thick line of blba trees lining the horizon. She presses her lips together for a moment, looking back down at Talvon. “He _scarred_ me.”

“I know.”

She squirms a little under his gaze focused on her lips and she tries not to remember a mouth full of blood, skin melting purple and green for weeks. Tries not to hear the way Malak apologized, words left on his lips because neither of them knew he would leave soon after.

She remembers it being a bit different after that.

“He’s really back?” Talvon asks, distracting her just for the moment so that she can remember Malak as he is now: all long limbs and broad shoulders, wide eyes and not at all like the gangly boy she knew.

“Well I did just talk to him.”

He rolls his eyes. “I get that, but what’s he doing here?”

“I don’t know, I wasn’t really paying attention, something about getting Knighted or I don’t know. _Talvon_.”

“What?” he asks, eyes snapping up to hers. “Are you still mad at him?”

“No, no, of course I’m not. I don’t know what I am. There’s just—something. I don’t know what it is, but I’m freaking out a little bit, okay?”

He huffs out a laugh but the gleam in his smile is suspicious. “You really are, though.”

“ _Yes_ and I’d really appreciate it if you’d help me stop.”

He frowns, one side of his face is outlined in the sun. “I’d love to, but I don’t know what to tell you, Rev. I don’t think I really get it, to be honest. He’s just some kid that almost ripped your jaw off, I mean, that’s in the past. Can you really blame him for it now?”

Her stomach twists softly like a sigh moving through her bloodstream. It makes her throat burn before she finally moves to sit down next to Talvon, who takes her hand in his and outlines each finger with his own, traces the wrinkles of her knuckles with his nail and she can feel it in her spine, looks up at the same time he does.

“It kind of changed my life, you know,” she says but her voice is quiet now. Calm cutting through the chaos.

Talvon’s right eye squints a little and it’s then that she realizes how close he is. “Did it?” he asks, and yes, there’s so many reasons that it did but she can’t think of any of them right now, doesn’t know what to think at all. Her back is warm from where the sun is resting on it but it doesn’t register.

There’s just one thought that stays.

“I met you because of him,” she says, eyes tracing the constellations of freckles dotting his cheekbones.

She doesn’t see Talvon’s smile so much as she senses it. His voice is soft, impossibly soft, like the way she feels when she’s first waking up. A bit fuzzy around the edges.

“We met in the medbay bathroom,” he says, and it’s all he needs to say.

He leans in.

;;

The Star Forge is so, so far away, but it’s sitting at the edge of cold, dead space, and it’s waiting for them. This is how Revan kills Malak:

She’s sitting in a field with Talvon, and they’re sitting too close, sitting on the edge of a precipice and she doesn’t know if she wants to push herself over. She feels like she’s in a tall building and all the lights are off, but she’s following the reflection of stars along the murky carpet, splattered like white paint against the blackness of it all.

Her eyes are heavy with the sun and she’s too close.

They say that every action has a reaction, that the floor pushes against you when you move across it, that the Force echoes through all the empty parts of the galaxy, moves and twists in ways that can’t be expected, can’t be contained or controlled. It doesn’t matter because anything you do will have some reaction. Every action has a reaction.

Revan doesn’t take a step forward.

She doesn’t _know._


	2. II

II.

What an odd feeling.

Revan is dreaming, and she’s made of shadows, of a resonance resounding black. She dreams of speed, of high intensity that moves around her but leaves her where she stands in the middle of an empty street. She thinks that maybe there are speeders rushing by and flooding her senses with motion, but she can’t see anything. It moves too quickly around her, surrounding her with darkness and warmth. She blinks once, twice, and the black waters are slowly dotted by tail lights blinding the corners of her vision, blinking out of sight like tiny sirens in the sky.

Time has somehow slowed down, maybe even stopped completely. She can’t move, feels paralyzed where she stands, where her feet touch gravel and her hair whips wildly through the restless air, but she’s caught in a riptide and she can’t swim parallel to the shore. She doesn’t panic. Light bends over the horizon and washes over her, blinds her as the world becomes white and all motion picks up, rushes by even faster until it feels like nothing at all.

It’s stunning, and so, so, compelling the way the world is swallowed by light and warmth, tucked into some pocket in the universe where life can go on, living but not alive all at the same time. She’s not afraid, the world burns but she’s not afraid.

Still she’s alone.

And then she’s not so sure she’s dreaming anymore.

;;

When Revan wakes up, the sun is missing.

The hallways are muted when Revan moves through them, they lack the stark contrast of sun and shadow, replaced by gray light twisting in through the windows. She chooses to ignore it, instead pushing through the crowd of sleepy Padawans, her mind floating elsewhere while her body takes her to their usual table and her usual seat in the usual cafeteria just like any other usual day.

And everything is so usual, except it’s not.

Malak is seated next to Talvon, and they both look up at her at the same time. She glances between their smiles before she moves to sit down. Whatever conversation they were having has completely stopped, and she lets her eyes trace down and along the rim of her red, paint chipped mug, still warm with tea.

“How are we this morning, boys?” she asks, glancing back up, and if her eyes linger on Malak, it’s only because she isn’t sure she’s used to it yet.

And if his eyes linger on her, she’s sure he’s just feeling the same.

She watches their mouths move as the first crack of thunder silences the room, draws mostly everyone’s attention to the darkness blooming through the windows and echoing lowly through the cafeteria. Talvon keeps his gaze locked on it the longest, and she can tell he’s looking for something besides the obvious.

“Let’s go out,” he says, tossing aside his crumpled napkin, lined with the indents of his fist, and pushes his plate out of the way. “The heat’s about to break.”

She can only stare when he stands, when Malak agrees with a smile and stands as well. Her eyes move past him and out at the clouds buckling beyond the window, rolling with sound like waves in the ocean. Revan’s never been to the ocean, but she figures second-hand knowledge counts just as well.

“It’s going to rain,” she says, as if it’s not an obvious fact, as if it’s something worth being noted when it really isn’t. She doesn’t know what she’s thinking when she says it, and the moment she catches Malak’s expression she wishes she hadn’t said anything at all.

But still she stands alongside them, and Talvon’s eyes are bright but his smile quirks up on one side.

“Oi,” he says. “All the greats truly are mad.”

“Shut up,” she mutters, and she turns away from Malak as the three of them head towards the door, but she can feel the weight of his gaze burning along the edges of her skin.

“So you’re still afraid, then?” he asks quietly even as she glares up at him, and Talvon turns back towards her, his face scrunched up in confusion.

“Afraid of what?” he asks, looking between her and Malak. “The rain?”

He sounds incredulous. He probably should.

“Not _afraid_ ,” she bites back, but she’s remembering pazaak and cold rain, remembers being dragged in until she was sure her blood was part rainwater. She remembers getting the worst cold of her life, feeling dizzy and half-conscious for a very, very long time, but she remembers Malak at her side through it all.

Wet hair and pale skin, she can see her shaking hands again, can feel tendrils of ice spinning around her bones. She can see Malak’s eyes blinking back cold rain, hands locked around her wrists and she can hear him laughing, can hear herself yelling but there’s a laugh behind every word, every breath.

Revan clutches her mug just a bit tighter as she swallows a mouthful of half melted, mostly grainy sugar, watches as Talvon shakes his head and reaches an arm around her as they keep walking. She can feel his fingers moving up her side, casting a frown onto her scarred lips as they settle in the shallow of her waist.

“Is there something I’m missing or are you feeling particularly crazy today?” he asks, and she’s helpless to look over at Malak, hates that she has to look _up_ at Malak next to her. He raises a brow but there’s a smirk playing on his lips, and there’s this feeling that rushes over her like she needs to explain herself. Her, Talvon, all of it, the past five years and maybe the five years before that.

“Crazy, definitely” is what she says, because she feels distracted and the muted hallways grow darker with every other step towards the door. She doesn’t look at Talvon as she shrugs away from him, but she doesn’t feel like she’s looking at anything at all.

“And for your information,” she continues, glancing over at Malak but not really, “I recovered from that very, very quickly.”

He nods, the motion catching the edge of her vision as he reaches for the door, opening it and smiling down at her. “Of course.”

;;

The heat hits them like the end of the world.

And it’s a lot like her dream, only it’s swallowed by heat instead of warm, candy coated light. Instead of the air being soft and safe, it’s thick and charged with energy. It makes her tea feel cold in all the places where her hands still surround the mug, and it looks like smoke settled across the sky and the grass. Streaks of foggy gray mix with the heat rising from the ground like a choked cough and Revan doesn’t mind, not really. Everything sits heavy in her vision, in the clouds, in the plains, and in her hands. She doesn’t mind.

They stop by the outermost bench, and she watches as the other two sit down before her, eyes tracing along the broad lines of Malak’s shoulders and back, covered by a thin white t-shirt. He stands out against the gray of it all, stark white and thick streaks of gray blue, the pale skin stretching over his arms, his hands, the lines of his neck and along his jaw.

There’s no pressing need for words as the thunder rolls on, low vibrations moving through the air and igniting like helium in her bones. Her eyes roam over the plains until they’re back on Malak and the soft and sharp angles contrasting on his profile. She creates lines between them, connecting his jaw to his cheekbone, to the dip of his forehead and back down the bridge of his nose. From his chin and the way his lips part into a smile as he tilts his head towards her. She doesn’t look away.

Pale skin, white shirt, bright eyes. He looks a lot like winter.

“Hi,” he says, and she’s still not used to how different his voice is, not the way it moves around his mouth and jaw, firmer and more structured than it was before.

And she smiles, can feel Talvon next to her as his knee bobbles up and down, thunder raging on. She shakes her head a little. “Hey.”

The spaces between the trees echo like dark shadows, pulling the sky down towards the earth as the thunder pushes it’s way out, and Revan doesn’t know if she wants it to rain. Maybe she doesn’t care whether or not the plains swallow the sky or if lightning branches out in streaks of blinding light, but she’d really like for it to make a decision.

“So Malak,” Talvon starts, his voice loud as it moves over the thunder, “is Dantooine the same as you remember?”

And Talvon’s asking, but Malak is watching her and the weight of his stare makes her skin feel warm and a little fidgety in all the places where she’s touching the bench.

But he smiles. “More or less,” he says, and the edges of his lips are warmer than the heat spreading through her limbs and up the back of her neck, crawling into her mug and gripping a choke hold on all the grass and trees and emptiness that surrounds them.

It’s orange, she thinks, it’s still burning but it’s caught between yellow and red.

Revan answers his smile. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah,” he says, and his expression wanes but he doesn’t look away from her, “‘s a bit weird, I guess, being back. A lot warmer than I remember.”

Talvon huffs out a breath next to her. “It’s warmer than _I_ remember.”

She smiles at that, and she closes her eyes for a moment as the air moves between them and around them, the heat growing softer as the breeze picks up. It’s odd place to be, caught somewhere between the past and the present, the foggy gray light and waiting for it to rain.

“I like it here,” she says, though it doesn’t have any relevance, not really. “It’s nice.”

“Me too, weirdo,” Talvon answers, knocks his knee against hers and she smiles at that too. He’s too much sometimes, but it’s okay, she tells herself. It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.

She smiles at Malak, has to blink up at his smile that brings her back down. It’s warm, she thinks, maybe warmer than the thick air around them because it reminds her of her early days on Dantooine. Bright sunshine and Malak laughing. It’s an odd place to be, still here nearly ten years after she first met him, and only missing the sunshine.

But the wind is cool as the thunder rages on, and it’s like she’s watching the storm dip its toes into her world, not yet ready to say _I’m here, let’s do this_.

“What about you?” she asks Malak.

At first he shrugs, a smile forming on his lips as he shakes his head. “Yeah, I like it here.”

Like casting a spell, a fat drop of rain hits her on the forehead, right where skin and hair meet. She flinches at first, then looks up at the aching sky as more follow in succession, and the clouds open up, pouring out onto the three of them. She’s not sure who’s the first to get up, but then they’re running. They’re soaked and it feels like time has slowed down, them running along with the rain, the past and the present, time ticking on but not really.

It falls like scattered shrapnel, and Revan stretches her arms out, stretches her fingers and blinks up at the sky, like saying _hit me, I’m not afraid anymore_.

The rain, the past, the present, the foggy gray light and no fear. It’s all okay.

They slow down when the nearest overhang is in sight, and Revan watches the way Malak tilts his head back, hands on his waist and chest heaving for air. She watches the way he closes his eyes, reflexes moving against the rain, the way the lines of his neck expand. He echoes like static, she thinks, but maybe he’s the moment it all becomes clear.

When he looks back down he smiles at her, all straight teeth and untamed emotion until lightning goes off, spidery lines clear against the thick clouds. It burns shadows into her vision, makes them both jump and then they’re both laughing, the three of them scrambling under the overhang as another roll of thunder pounds it’s way out of the clouds and to the ground.

Words, then, are lost to the storm.

;;

Inside the Enclave the windows are open and the air has cooled and quieted. Revan’s eyes are closed, but she’s listening to the sounds of the room, the ticking of the clock, the quiet breaths of Vrook sitting across from her. The sun has yet to reappear, most likely won’t as time moves slowly, quietly and the gray light grows dizzy as it pushes its way into the room, crowding around Revan and seeping into her skin.

Master Vrook is coated in the same gray light, and she wonders why there aren’t any lights on, if that’s just reserved for the cool shadows of winter and not the slow stretch of time after summer rain. She feels like she can hardly see, too accustomed to gold burning through the room but she thinks she likes the shadows. The way they float up the walls makes her feel like she’s still dreaming, and she’s waiting for the pale yellow light to swallow her whole again.

Vrook gets up and moves across the room, but she’s closed her eyes again, breathing in the cool air brushing over her face. Her hair and clothes have long dried since the morning but she still feels damp everywhere, like her body is humming and doesn’t quite know how to stop. She hums along with it, just a small sound that moves up and down, moving in a way that reminds her of a song she knew as a child, maybe that’s been in her head since before she ever came to Dantooine.

It fills in the spaces between the ticking clock and Vrook’s breathing, it moves over the breeze pushing its way into the room, and it’s so bloody familiar but with everything she has she can’t remember it completely.

And she opens her eyes to make out Vrook’s shadow. He’s watching her with curious eyes but she doesn’t mind, she likes the way the gray light dips into the soft wrinkles across his forehead and mouth, and he’s still moving but she’s not entirely sure where he’s going or what he’s doing, not until his hands smooth over the wall and the light panel, flooding the room with cold, white light and suddenly she can see everything but can’t feel anything.

He pauses and all that’s between them is the ticking clock, the white light, and the sound of both of them breathing.

“You know about the Great Hunt,” he says.

She doesn’t know if it’s a question or not, but the way he says it makes her want to answer. Her lips part and she watches him move back across the room. “Of course.”

He nods. “It was no secret that I was among the few who had reservations about Korriban. Sending Qel-Droma so soon after what Ulic had done seemed...unwise. Blood is still blood.”

He pauses but she doesn’t feel right saying anything. His eyes are turned towards the floor, tracing along the lines of the tile but she doesn’t think he knows he’s doing it.

“Not many agreed with me on that point,” he says, but he doesn’t seem upset. He’s still not looking at her. “It took some time for me to realize that parts of me were afraid of what would happen. Even at my age it’s hard to remember that fear never feels irrational.”

She nods, she isn’t sure why she does it, but she nods. “When I was a kid I was always afraid of the world ending. I think that’s pretty irrational.”

And she pauses, smiles down at her hands because she forgot about this a little bit. When she looks up Vrook is watching her and she nods again. “Because that’s absurd, right? I’ve always known that it won’t happen, the galaxy won’t explode and the stars won’t suddenly stop spinning, we all know that.”

He raises a brow. “So what do you think that means?”

“Well,” she starts, closes one eye as she tries to think about it, lets the other roam up the walls, “I would say that our irrational fears hide our real fears, because maybe that’s easier to admit to yourself. It’s easier to be afraid of something you know won’t happen.”

Vrook smiles a little, shakes his head and it’s all too clear under the white light. “That’s very wise,” he says.

She rolls her eyes. “I try.”

And time passes very slowly between them, the air has turned almost cold in the room but neither make the effort to get up and close the window. She runs her hands over her bare knees, slotting her fingers in the dips and ridges along her legs.

The sound of Vrook’s breathing becomes shallow for a moment, and she looks up, meets his gaze under the bright lights. “So what were you really afraid of?” he asks.

She shrugs, maybe because she doesn’t think it’s a big deal, maybe because it shouldn’t be a big deal. “Uh, the opposite I guess. Not so much dying as not getting the chance to live.”

“Many people share that fear,” he says, “I wouldn’t worry about it, though.”

“No?”

He shakes his head, voice soft. “No.”

Revan doesn’t really know what to say to that, doesn’t even know if she’s still holding on to any residual fear or if it was forgotten along the way. She shrugs. “Okay.”

He laughs, and she likes the sound of it, she likes the way she can hear all the different layers that make up Master Vrook. He laughs for just a moment but it feels longer in her mind, and he shakes his head again. “I doubt the galaxy will know what to do with you, Revan.”

“Good,” she says, and she can’t help the smile that spreads across her lips. “I wouldn’t want it to.”

;;

Later in the night Revan is sitting on the sofa in the common room, and the lights are off again. It’s late enough that the shadows are virtually nonexistent, and the windows are wide open but they don’t make a difference. The air between the inside and outside is virtually the same, it’s warm and soft where it settles around her, and it feels a little perfect from where she’s curled up on the couch.

And she doesn’t want to close her eyes, not yet. She feels tired but restless at the same time, and she knows she should go to bed, but can’t seem to find the desire to get up off the couch. It’s a long time, she thinks, that she’s there and she’s alone, her eyes taking longer to open after every blink, before she hears a quiet cough and she’s looking over.

There’s someone else in the room, but it’s incredibly easy to make him out amongst the shadows. Despite the years apart, despite all the differences, the lines of his face echo in her mind like radiation, and besides, he’s too tall to be anyone else.

She doesn’t know why she smiles at that, but she does and there’s no going back.

“Hi,” she says, her voice soft as it moves through the darkness. She can make out his pieces of him as he draws closer to the couch, and then he’s beside her, the side of his face outlined in weak, watery light.

“What’re you doing?” Malak asks.

“Hm,” she breathes. “You know, I’m not sure. Staring at the ceiling, I suppose.”

“Talvon was right, you know,” he says. His voice moves slow and the shadows dip into his dimples when he smiles. “You have gone a bit mad.”

And she puffs out her bottom lip, reaches out an arm to push at his shoulder as he laughs. She shakes her head but she’s helpless to smile again. “Shush. I could ask you the same thing.”

His smile slows down until it’s gone and she thinks the room looks a little darker without it. He just shrugs. “I guess I’m just not used to it yet. I mean they put me in the same room as before, how weird is that?”

“Pretty weird,” she says, but she feels a bit distracted by the way his eyes blink back against the shadows.

“But it’s a good weird? I don’t know how to explain it,” he says with a small shrug. “I’m really happy to be back.”

 _I’m happy you’re back too_. “What was Coruscant like?” she asks.

“Loud,” he says, and his smile returns, “but you get used to it. I’m probably headed back soon, I’m applying to an advanced training program there for when I’m Knighted”

She nods, breathes in the temperate air and she smiles, because it’s always the same. Dizzy gray light, the ticking clock, both of them breathing. “You must be excited to get going, then.”

“Well, yes and no,” he answers, and it’s easier to make out parts of him. The larger shapes are easily discernible, but there’s his eyes, his hands, his lips and jaw moving with every word. His smile as he looks over at her in the dark. “I mean growing up we would always talk about what it would be like to get out of here, you know? And I guess it is exciting, but Zhar’s staying here and I won’t be living in the Jedi complex, so it’ll be different. For the moment I’m happy being here.”

Revan watches as he looks away, more senses than sees anything, but he echoes blue. Always blue.

“You’ll love it,” she says. “Change is a good thing, right? Or maybe I just like Zhar better and I’m glad he’ll be staying instead of you.”

Malak lets out a sharp bark of laughter, has to cover his mouth with a hand because they’re still surrounded by the dizzy gray light. She watches his eyes form half moons. “Shut up,” he says. “Don’t tell me you haven’t missed me.”

She narrows her eyes. “I don’t know about that, Mal, I reckon I found a few good replacements for you.”

And then he’s not looking at her, or at least she can’t make out his gaze as larger shadows seep into the room. His voice is soft, though, as it moves underneath them. “I like Talvon.”

“Yeah,” she says, “me too.”

They’re quiet for a moment, and she can feel her eyelids grow heavier with each passing minute. The empty spaces between them feel small compared to the large space around them, the emptiness of the room and the edges of the open window.

“Hey,” he says suddenly, his voice a bit jarring in contrast with the silence. “Do you think it’s still there?”

“Is what still where?”

“Our spot,” he says, and she can just make out his frown. “Please tell me you remember.”

She smiles, shakes her head even though she could probably never forget. It’s just a stupid, stupid, stupid crop of shorter grass, planted on one of the more obscure hills. She can almost see the way it’s outlined in trees, the rocky ledge that overlooks a majority of the plains surrounding the Enclave. The building itself was always visible even though the distance made it murky, somehow not there at all. She hasn’t been there since he left.

“Afraid not,” she says, thankful that the dark room hides her face. “Five years is a long time.”

The shadows still outline his frown, barely forming a pout. “Not that long.”

“Long enough.”

“Long enough for what?” he asks, and she can hear the smallest amount of amusement in his voice. It sounds like a song stuck in her head or the sun peering over the horizon, just there. Always there. She doesn’t know how she’s gone so long without it.

“To not remember everything,” she says, and she wishes she’d said anything else, that they could go over every little thing they went through together. It’s been so long since she’s thought about any of it, been so long since she’s wanted to think about it. Good things don’t end unless they end badly, right? Her left hand ghosts over her lips and she has that feeling again, like there’s so much she needs to say but doesn’t know where to start.

When she turns back to Malak he’s watching her. His eyes look shiny in the weak light, but there’s a half-smile on his lips and it’s all alright.

“Okay,” he says. “Then we’ll have to go back sometime.”

“Yeah, definitely.”

And then he’s moving to get up, the weight of the couch feels lighter without him but he’s stretching his arms out and she can’t tear her eyes away. She jumps a little when his hand wraps around her wrist, but then he’s helping her up and she’s painfully aware of their new height difference.

They don’t say anything as they move quietly through the hallway. It’s easier to see with the wide set windows on one side letting in starlight with open palms. Malak is much clearer in the pale light, and his eyes are soft when they meet hers. They’re slow as they approach her door, and then it’s them standing next to it, his eyes on hers, hers on his. It’s a lot to have the past rushing at her like this, but she doesn’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.

“Goodnight, Rev,” he says, and she watches as his right hand comes up to his face, knuckles rubbing underneath his jawline.

She rolls her eyes. “Come here,” she says before reaching her arms out, both of them stepping a little closer. He bends down to wrap his arms around her waist as hers go around his neck, resting her chin on his shoulder. It’s only for a moment, just a quick _one, two_ , but it’s warm and it’s familiar, and so she sinks into it, pulling back to watch the light cast new shadows onto the side of his face.

“Goodnight, Malak,” she says, and she leans back against the door. She watches as he nods and backs away, facing her until he turns and disappears down the hall. One breath and then she’s back in her room, finally allowing her mind to slow down, Malak’s name still sitting on her tongue.


	3. III.

This is how it happens:

“Are you coming to dinner?”

It’s Talvon, and his hands are in his pockets and his smile is a little lopsided, but he looks happy.

“I can’t,” she answers. “But you have fun without me, yeah?”

He nods and she watches him as he moves around her. The hall is aching with the sun again and maybe that suits it better, but the way the light slants in through the corridor makes her feel weightless and the way Talvon smiles makes her feel like she’s breathing in something lighter than air. It makes her feel like maybe a ghost would, empty and kind of not there. She decides it’s not a bad thing. Talvon is here but she’s not, she’s here but she’s not.

“You do realize that you can’t live off of tea and oxygen, right?” he asks.

She shrugs, and she lets the light hit the edge of her face where she can feel the warmth dragging up her skin. “It’s been doing me well so far.”

“Yeah, sure,” Talvon says, shaking his head a bit but he’s smiling too. “Come on, Malak will be there.”

“Well there has to be a reason I’m not going.”

He squints a little in the sunlight, his lips twitching to the side but then he’s half smiling. “Wait, seriously?”

“No,” Revan answers, watching the way his expression changes. It moves easily and she likes that, like maybe he could be an actor if he weren’t a Jedi. She bites her lip a moment before she speaks again. “It’s actually you, Tal. I didn’t want to have to tell you like this, but...”

He breathes out a laugh and his smile echoes in the sunlight, but it doesn’t feel as bright as before. Things are always moving, always changing, and so she sinks into it, smiles instead at the way Talvon rolls his eyes and takes a step backwards.

“You’re the worst,” he says, and then he moves another foot behind him, moves just a little further away before the other follows and there’s a large gap between them.

She frowns, looks down at the space between them and then back up at him. “I didn’t mean it,” she says, puffing out her bottom lip. “Come back.”

“I’m hungry,” he says, but then he’s crossing the distance of the hall and surrounding her with his arms. He kisses the top of her head before he pulls away and says, “Later though, yeah?”

“Yeah.” She watches him then as he turns his back and disappears down the hall. She’s breathing slow as she goes the opposite way, as she stretches out her fingers at her sides. She tries not to think at all, instead filling her mind with a litany of _Dinner sounds great, yeah, I’d love to. Dinner? Definitely, let’s get out of here._

She presses her lips together and turns down the next hallway, letting her eyes glaze over each door she passes and ignoring the wide windows to her left. She counts them like a mantra in the back of her mind, her lips forming the numbers but they stay silent in the empty hall.

It's quiet in that way when everyone's busy, like everyone’s sort of forgotten about the world, too wrapped up in what they’re doing to fill the halls and all the spaces that look too empty.

She takes another breath before she’s tapping at Vrook’s door, she doesn’t have the time to take another before he’s in front of her, his lips pulled into a tight line and his eyes seeking hers. She runs a hand through her hair before he steps aside to let her in.

The room is soft, coated in white and pale blue that makes the air seem less tense than it actually is. It makes her feels like she’s swimming, and that her veins aren’t thrumming with anticipation or anxiety or whatever it is that has her hands fumbling at her sides when she walks through the door.

She turns, facing Vrook who’s leaning against the wall, his eyes still intense and the wrinkles around his mouth moving as he presses his lips together. She raises a brow, tries to convey some sort of easiness to calm the tension in the room but it isn’t really working. She gives in.

“What’s going on?” she asks.

He moves away from the wall, his eyes softening in the slightest as he approaches. “I trust you,” he says. “You know that.”

“Well I’d hoped so,” she says, managing as much of a smile as she can. It feels more like denial than anything else, like she’s holding herself back from whatever is making Vrook’s brow crease before she gets too far in.

He hums softly, it’s a quiet noise that only really acknowledges that she said anything at all. He meets her gaze. “Do you believe that trust is a mutual thing?”

“I trust you if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Good,” he mutters, moving across the room again. ”Listen,” he starts, “a lot is about to happen, but I need you to trust that everything is going to work out the way it’s supposed to.”

As if that’s supposed to help. She shakes her head. “Vrook, please just tell me what’s going on.”

“Kae’s coming back,” he says suddenly and without caution. “And it’s not under the best terms.”

She doesn’t think she’s breathing. “Why?”

It feels like too much time is passing between his words, too much time that his lips don’t move and his eyes bore into the window frame. The room no longer looks soft and inviting, but rather careless in the way the light sits on the walls and furniture.

Vrook takes another breath and she almost laughs at herself, for the way her focus is completely on him and every minute detail of his lips, his lungs, his eyes, the way his jaw moves and the way his voice fills the room. “Master Kae will be put on trial tomorrow afternoon.”

_Master Kae will be put on trial tomorrow afternoon._

There’s a moment in your life. Time has stopped and your stomach has bottomed out. Your vision moves slow and everything feels a bit louder in your ears, or maybe they’re ringing and you’re just trying to get a grip, trying to understand what’s happening while not really acknowledging it.

There’s a moment where your vision goes a bit fuzzy and it’s hard to remember what exactly just happened, your ears are still ringing and your lips are swollen, are your ears really ringing? There’s too much happening, you’re too conscious and not conscious enough. It all moves very, very slowly.

And that’s the thing about these moments. Life goes on around you even when you feel like yours has paused. Like when you’re up too late and you think that maybe those who are sleeping have gone forward in time. They’re really awake, living in the morning or the afternoon, and you’re still waiting for the sun to rise. You’re kind of lost in these hours, time is lost and everything feels so undeniably wrong that it’s hard to tell if it’s happening at all.

But the lights are still on, the bed’s still made, the stars still spin.

_Master Kae will be put on trial tomorrow afternoon._

Revan blinks, lets the words wash over her again and she’s not sure where her head is at. She feels numb, like her head’s been stuffed full of white. There’s a lot of words spinning through her thoughts, _why’s_ and _how’s_ , but it doesn’t matter, does it? She feels left open, kind of, and everything’s sort of fallen out. Empty.

“I know,” Vrook says, and she wonders how much time passed. “But I can’t tell you any of the details now.”

She’s standing. She doesn’t remember sitting down but suddenly the room spins around her and Vrook’s on her level again. Her face is moving and then her lips are moving and her voice sounds like she hasn’t said anything in a while. “What?”

“There’s only so much I can say before the actual trial, Revan, I just—” he rubs a hand over his brow. “I just didn’t want tomorrow to blindside you.”

“Blindside.” The word falls from her lips, she doesn’t know if her brain is actually working or not. “My Master, who I’ve known for twelve years, is being put on trial tomorrow and you didn’t want me to be blindsided?”

“I’m sorry,” is what he says, and he seems so unlike himself that Revan tries to blink away all of it. “We’re only trying to do what’s right.”

What’s right. A trial. _Right._

She blinks again. “I’m gonna go.”

He presses his lips together, and she can see the slight panic welling in his eyes. She looks away, focusing instead on the tiles below them. He clears his throat. “Right, okay.”

There’s too many spaces between the words, and the spaces feels like miles where words are missing. They should be there though, somehow explaining this.

The sunlight slanting in through the windows hits Revan’s face as she moves back through the hall. It blurs the edges of the shadows cast onto the floors, crushed beneath the weight of hers and hiding from what’s to come. And the thing is, she doesn’t know where to go, she doesn’t know what to do. She feels like she’s stuck on a loop of time where Vrook’s words are repeated to her over and over and over again, moving around her and through her. All over, forever, around her, over and over and over again.

Which makes it a little funny that she ends up in the cafeteria, surrounded by faces and smiles that have no idea what’s going on. It makes her stomach roll like a wave but Revan still hasn’t been to the ocean, and maybe secondhand knowledge isn’t enough.

Talvon is the first to notice her when she approaches their table. Malak and Cariaga are there too but they don’t see her, not right away. For a moment it’s just her and Talvon, and she knows. She knows he knows something’s off, just by the way his eyes focus on her. She feels very suddenly transparent, and he’s getting up, muttering something at the others before he’s by her side.

“Hallway?” he asks, but it’s not really a question and he’s wrapping his hand around her pinky and ring finger.

The windows are still thrumming with life but the color is distinctly less gold and instead marked off by orange pink, orange blue, orange purple. It’s a lot less intimidating than the way Talvon is looking at her. She can see concern tugging at the rims of his eyes and his too wide lips, the questions burning into her skin and she doesn’t know what to do.

“You’re shaking,” is what he says once it’s just them in the hall. She leans her back against the solid wall, blinded by the setting sun for only a moment before Talvon moves in front of it, right arm bracketing her side. Light surrounds him, leaving his face dull and he’s very close, but she thinks maybe she needs this right now.

“No I’m not,” she answers, and God, her voice sounds wrong, like she’s been coughing or choking or something similarly awful. It makes her smile a little, just for the moment so she can try get a grip on the situation.

She takes a breath. “Kae’s coming back tomorrow.”

Talvon visibly flinches at that, his eyes go a bit wide and he shifts his weight between his feet, but he never takes his gaze off of her. The light sits around him and he’s just watching her, his initial shock soon replaced by confusion, and she gets that, she does.

“Vrook said she’s being put on trial,” she clarifies.

That one hits a bit harder.

“What?” he says immediately. “For what?”

She shakes her head. “He said he—” a pause, “he can’t tell me anything until the trial is over.”

“Wh—,” he starts, but it’s broken by the sound of the door next to them opening. Revan blinks a few times before she smiles at Malak and Cariaga passing through, nudging at Talvon’s arm so that he backs off.

“Hey,” she says, noting the way their eyes turn cautious and Malak’s frowning a little but she’s able tuck her hands behind her back, she’s able to press her lips together, she’s able to breathe, she’s able to do so, so, so many things. “What’s up?”

Neither of them say anything at first, but Cariaga blinks a few times before glancing up at Malak and then back to her. “Are you okay?” she asks, but her voice is just as soft as it always is and her eyes are wide and her hands are at her sides too but they don’t move.

Revan nods. “Yeah, fine.”

“Rev—” Talvon begins, but she shakes her head quickly. The light slants in lower now, and warms her face in all the places where Talvon can’t block it. She closes her eyes, just for a moment, steadying her breath. Suddenly there’s too many eyes on her and too many worried glances between everyone and really, she’s fine. She just need to....process this.

“Seriously, I’m fine. I’m just—I’m gonna go,” she says, running another hand through her hair, staring into the swollen sun as she moves past Talvon and towards the door. Each step feels weighted, like she’s being tethered to the earth and each movement gets so hard to follow through, it’s so hard to do anything, to think, to try and comprehend this.

She doesn’t care what Talvon tells them, she doesn’t care who knows or what anyone says or thinks, she just wants to breathe. Her throat feels thick and her stomach feels tight, an aching sort of nausea. She feels like she needs to get out of her body but she’s trapped, still weighted to the world.

The door opens and she’s outside. The world is surrounded by warm light that’s soft at the edges and Revan feels a heaviness in her chest. She can feel it crawling up her throat and prickling her eyes, but she takes as deep a breath as possible, feels the pads of her fingers running over her scalp, through her hair and into the warm summer air.

She lets her hands fall onto her waist, shrugging her shoulders up as tight as she can manage and lets them go, let’s her head fall back so that the sun streaks along the line of her neck, dragging up her chest and dipping into her collarbones. It should feel safe, it should feel comforting in a way that it always has, but right now it feels like a distraction. A litany of thoughts creep in but they have to war with the ongoing sun dipping into the clouds that sit like mountains on the horizon.

It’s a lot.

“Revan!”

She turns around, knuckles tight around her waist, and it hurts, is the thing, but she’s holding on and that’s what matters. Talvon, Cariaga, and Malak are coming towards her and she isn’t surprised, she likes the way the sun hits each of their faces. A more welcome distraction because it’s not her, it’s not her, it’s not her.

“Hey,” she says when they catch up.

Talvon grabs a hold of her elbow, pulling it away from her and into his grasp. “We’re getting out of here,” he says. “We’re celebrating.”

She lets her other hand fall away from her waist. “What? Why?”

“Because,” he answers, and they’re walking in a different direction now, a road that she knows the end to and Malak and Cariaga are there too, but she wonders how much they know, what they’re thinking right now. The air moves in and out but she doesn’t really know if it’s reaching her lungs. Talvon shrugs. “We’re celebrating things how they are on the precipice of change. We’ll smoke cigarettes and watch fireworks and everything will be okay.”

A smile forms on her lips but she’s shaking her head. “That sounds wildly depressing.”

“Yeah, well, it’s what you’re getting.”

The rest of the walk kind of floats by. It’s quiet in a way that’s not quiet, like when Talvon and Malak carry a conversation and it’s just soft and feels more like it’s passing her by, like she’s watching it go rather than listening to it. She likes the way their voices contrast, the way Talvon can talk so quickly, so animated in that way that she knows exactly what his face is doing without even looking at him. She likes the way Malak’s voice moves into the increasingly dark sky, the lowness of it and how slow it spills from his lips. It’s like jumping into a pool in the middle of the night when it’s so dark you can’t tell if your eyes are open or not, and you don’t know when the water will hit or if it’ll hit at all. And yeah, it’s a lot like that.

“This was a lot scarier when we were thirteen,” he tells her when Cariaga and Talvon are caught up in a conversation of their own. The road is wider now and the moon glows a little brighter than the sun, but the air is still warm, still there when she breathes it in.

“Yeah,” she laments, lets the corners of her lips rise, doesn’t think. “I don’t count Garang as sneaking out anymore.”

She watches the way his smile pulls at his lips, the way the sun stretches along his profile and when he turns to her he’s made of shadows and the weakened light. His eyes don’t leave hers. “It’s a proper shame,” he says, “it was always one of my favorite parts about Dantooine.”

His smile falls the longer he keeps his eyes on her, the longer that she doesn’t say anything and only moves her gaze away to watch where she’s going. She squints through the last specks of orange light burning neon into her vision, blinks it back to look at him and she opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again. “What did Talvon tell you?” she asks.

“Nothing,” he says after a moment, his words still slow and careful. “Just that, you know, a lot is happening right now.”

“Yeah,” she says, tugging at the ends of her hair. “I guess there is.”

Malak kind of smirks and the dying light lays even more dead around him as he bumps his elbow into her. “Just think—a year from now this might not matter at all, you know? And maybe twenty years from now you won’t even remember it.”

“Remind me to thank you in twenty years,” she says as she watches the last of the sun melt into the horizon, muddy light poking through the clouds, dark and Malak is still next to her. She smiles a little. “Really, though, thanks.”

He smiles back at her, and his arm twitches closer to her but he seems to rethink it, letting it fall back to his side. It’s darker and Talvon and Cariaga are quiet beside them, but the lights of Garang are visible now and so she sinks into the moment. She takes a deep breath and the lights grow brighter as the sky grows darker and it’s all moving very, very slowly.

Vrook’s words all around her, over and over and over again.

;;

Midnight comes faster than Revan expects.

At some point time stops moving so slowly, maybe when the warm night air is replaced by heavy cantina music and stale smoke. She feels a bit dizzy underneath the dark lights, the bass moving through her bones and pounding through her head. It pulls through her like something heavy and weighted, but it feels different than before. She’s able to fight it this time, body moving against the pressure and to the beat.

She closes her eyes every few moments, trying to decipher the moment that it’s the same beneath the blinking lights. It’s hard though, and there’s a hand at the crook of her elbow, turning her and when she opens her eyes it’s Talvon and he’s smiling.

He’s smiling and then she’s smiling too, it shakes her like a hurricane beneath the lights and through the music. He’s mouthing something at her but she shakes her head, she doesn’t know what he’s saying but he’s still smiling. She can’t hear him but he’s still smiling.

“What?” she yells over the music, trying to exaggerate the way her lips move so he’ll see.

She doesn’t know why he smiles even wider at that, but he does and then he rushes towards her, hands sliding around her jaw and he’s leaning in. It very suddenly feels like there are too many words on the page, that there are too many lights blinking and blinding her. She tries to pull away, but Talvon’s still there and he’s moving to the side, hands firm around her as his thumbs dip into her cheeks, fingers brushing the back of her neck. His lips to her ear.

She still can’t hear him, can only make out a, “...doesn’t matter,” and everything turns back to its usual color, the music comes back on and everything’s still too loud but it’s okay.

“I need some air,” she says as loud as she can, leaning toward him but not touching him, and she thinks her voice carries over the music but she can’t be sure. “But I might head home.”

When she pulls back it looks like Talvon understands, but she tilts her head towards the door anyways, waving when she pulls back far enough. She moves through the crowd, and that’s the thing. It feels like a different world here.

She wants to laugh at the way the door bursts open, all rusted at the hinges and the push lever with more than it’s fair share of use. It clamors into the night air, but then she’s surrounded by blissful silence, only faintly filled in by the shapes in the alley exhaling smoke.

Which is where, maybe not so surprisingly, she finds Malak.

He’s leaning against the wall, closer to the street than the damp alleyway, but he’s rather unmistakable beneath the warm glow of the streetlights.

“Hey,” she says, slowing down and leaning next to him. “You need a cigarette to complete the picture.”

It’s hard to make him out as he shifts further into the shadows, she suspects he’s looking down at her but she can’t be sure. The wall thrums with the life behind it but it’s not overwhelming. Malak shifts again and his voice makes a small sound in the quiet alley. “Hm?”

“You’re standing in a dark alley,” she says as if it’s not obvious. “Do that often?”

He makes another small noise that sounds kind of like a laugh but then it’s quiet again. “Babe, you have no idea what Coruscant is like.”

“Condescending but true,” she says, smirking a little. “I’ll just have to go and find out for myself.”

“Please don’t,” he says quietly, but he’s moving away from the wall and into the light and the lines of his face are clearer now. “Were you leaving?” he asks.

And it’s funny how slow her mind is moving, that everything around him is tinged blue and her thoughts have turned into a litany of _MalakMalakMalak_. She thinks that maybe she’s missed him a lot, in the past hour or the past five years, she isn’t sure. She nods, but then she stupidly realizes he probably can’t see her in the dark alleyway. She moves into the light of the street and nods again and it all feels a bit weird, but then he’s linking his arm through hers like they used to all those years ago.

“You up for being sidetracked?” he asks, and his arm is warm against hers and the air is warm and the sound of his voice is warm and the way the streetlamps hit the gravelled sidewalks is warm. Vrook’s words still float around her but she’s too warm to notice right now.

She nods again, smiles because she feels like she hasn’t said anything in a while. “I’ve missed you, you know.”

He frowns a little before looking over his shoulder and pulling her into the road. The streets are empty at this time of night—morning?—and the middle of the road is just as good a place as any to walk. It feels a lot like she’s dreaming, she’s beginning to think that maybe she always does, but still she glances up at the near black sky and wills the sun not to rise.

“Just now?” he asks.

And, well, she might’ve forgotten what she was saying but there’s a hint of amusement in his eyes and the street is so empty that it feels like maybe she’s in a different life entirely. She just shakes her head. “What?”

Malak pulls at her arm a little and he’s smiling now, the streetlamps’ light reflecting off his face. “You said you missed me, and I asked when.”

“When you were shorter,” she answers with a pointed glance at their locked arms and he laughs like it was actually funny. It’s quiet after that, the road grows longer and the buildings lessen until it’s an empty field and the stars are spinning brighter than before. There’s no underlying question, no wondering where they’re going or why they’re going there. She thinks of Malak’s words in the dark, the _please tell me you remember_ , and the _we’ll have to go back sometime_.

Well here they are, here they are where the moon is singing and where he is and where she is. Here they are and they’re right here, here where they haven’t been in so long.

Their spot, even as dim as it is to her still adjusting eyes, is just the same as it always was. Malak still sits to her right, leaned against a thin blba tree and his legs are hanging off the edge. She rests on her arms stood still behind her, making her shoulders ache but not enough to do anything about it. At this point she doesn’t think there’s much that would.

“Hey,” he says, and his voice is quiet but still slow, still like she’s hanging midair.

So she eases into it, lets the night air wash over her before she glances over at Malak. “Hi.”

“This is kind of weird, innit?” he asks, or maybe not. Maybe he’s just saying it and maybe that’s okay too because when she thinks about it, yeah, it is weird.

She isn’t sure what her face is doing because she feels sort of numb all over, and the question or not-question still sits in the air but they both sort of know the answer to it so all she’s left to do is let out a soft, “Yeah,” and let that be that.

And she can hear the sound of him breathing in and it’s a little confusing how different and the same a moment in time can be as another. He shifts away from the blba tree and closer to her, close enough that it’s easier to make out the outlines of his face when she looks up at him. He doesn’t blink.

“But like a good weird,” he says. “Right?”

She lets out a soft laugh that still seems to harsh in this weird, gentle bubble of time surrounding them. He’s still watching her but she rolls her eyes. “Please, count the ways.”

“Well,” he starts and takes a long pause that has her laughing softly into the back of her hand before she goes to push it through her hair. He looks away then and she watches his profile as he presses his lips together, just for a moment before he speaks again. “It’s like no time has passed since we were last here. Like the past whatever years didn’t happen, I don’t know. If you told me right now that it’s just you and me on this hill and we’re ten or we’re twelve and that’s it, I’d believe you.”

A pause. “Except I don’t think you could pass for twelve, Rev.”

“No?”

He smiles. “No.”

“Damn, and here you are doing such a fine job of it,” she says, and she likes the way he scrunches his nose for just a second, the way his smile is just on his lips now with those stupid dimples marking his skin on either side.

“Let’s play a game,” he says, simply and not at all like it’s very early in the morning and they’re not where they should be.

She hesitates before she gives one firm shake of her head. “Alright. Which game?”

“Um,” he says, and he smiles like he hadn’t actually had a game in mind. “Truth or truth?”

“No dare?” she asks.

“No dare,” he answers. “But you can go first if you’d like.”

She takes a moment to think about it, filling in the time by watching the way the moon makes everything look milky and soft, gentle like she could stay in these few hours for the rest of her life. That’d be nice, maybe, to not have to face the coming day at all, to not have her memories marred by whatever’s going to happen. She wonders what the drawbacks from that would be.

“Okay,” she starts. “I’ll make it easy on you, what was your favorite part about Coruscant?”

He doesn’t even take the time to think about it, just tips his head back a little as the hint of a smile echoes on the corners of his lips. “Like it’s easy picking a favorite anything,” he says, and then he pauses. “I liked that there was always something to do, but it never felt like you had to do anything, you know? How about you, favorite part about Dantooine?”

She hums for a second, letting his words roll over in her head. “I like the way it feels here. I might be in love with the sun, just a little bit.”

“Nice,” he says, not very seriously but then he seems to reconsider it. “I like that.”

“Yeah?” she asks, smile on her lips. “He’s mine, though, so don’t get any ideas.”

He rolls his eyes in the dim moonlight. “Wouldn’t dream of it, babe.”

“My turn? Um, has anything radical happened since before? Like, anything I should know about now that we’re friends again?”

Malak smiles at her, raises a brow. “Radical? I don’t suppose so. Also, we’re friends?”

“Of course,” she answers. “And that counts as your question, so...sucks to be you, I guess. Um, it might actually suck to be me because I don’t really know what to ask you and my mind is kind of all over the place so...I don’t know. It can be your turn.”

He squints a little but his smile turns down at the corners. He’s quiet for a long moment before he asks, “If you could have one do-over, what would you do?”

Revan clears her throat in favor of saying the first answer that comes to mind. In the space between the question and her answer, she’s incredibly aware of how quiet it actually is. She lets out a long breath. “That’s a terrible question,” she says, quite earnestly. “I regret buying you that friendship bracelet back in the day, you don’t even wear it.”

His eyes are fixed to hers and he looks amused. “God, it’s been five years, Rev. Gotta let some things go.”

“Rude.”

“I’m not very sorry,” he says, his eyes still on her. “I think I might have it around somewhere, and that’s not fair, do you even have yours?”

She shakes her head. “I’d tell you, but it’s not your turn to ask.”

His brow furrows when he takes a moment to think about it and she laughs at that. She likes it here, where time is a little meaningless and Malak reminds her that change doesn’t last forever. They’re here and they’re together and it’s been five years but does that really matter? She doesn’t think so.

Revan tilts her head back, watching the darkest parts of the sky and the way they make it seem deeper there, like it’s not a pocket of space but rather a canyon and she’d like to run her hands over it, to feel the cracks and edges, the craters and the mountains and know that it doesn’t feel the same as it looks.

“Umm,” she says, all long and drawn out because she’s determined to come up with a question. She blinks up at him. “If you couldn’t be a Jedi what would you want to do?” she asks, and before he can say anything, “Don’t say you’d join the Republic because I know that’s what you’d choose and that’s rather boring.”

He doesn’t pout and it’s not cute. By the time he’s sort of turned serious he’s not looking at her anymore and she likes that he takes it seriously, the way his brow creases in thought and the way the corners of his lips move like he’s about to say something. It’s somehow incredibly endearing and completely ridiculous.

“I think I’d be a fisherman,” he says, turning back to her. “Or maybe go backpacking across Naboo. Just—something interesting or, you know, something that would take advantage of life without Jedi rules.”

“Like what?” she asks.

He shakes his head and the corners of his lips rise and it’s a little brighter along the edges of the horizon now but she’s focused on him. “It’s my turn,” he says.

“Cheeky.”

“Yeah, well,” he starts and then it’s quiet for a long minute in which the stars start to fade and the edges of Malak’s profile are dull with the sky aching a hazy gray above them, the hint of pink where the sun should rise. She lets her eyes travel along the edges of it, over the muddy outline of hills and the Enclave in the distance, around the blba trees and the world still sleeping, still dark but somehow light at the same time and she wants to shake her head, close her eyes and go back, rewind because it only gets brighter from here, there’s only one thing that could happen from this and she’s not ready for that.

Malak breaks the quiet first by shifting, next by speaking. “So do you still have your friendship bracelet?”

“I do,” she answers. “Some of us have the decency to hold onto things.”

He shakes his head. “Show me.”

She rolls her eyes but she gets up anyways, reaching an arm down to help him up. He raises a brow but accepts it with a small smile. Their fingers lace together until he’s towering over her again, which seems a little unnecessary but they both let go in favor of walking away from their spot.

“What do you think is going to happen ten years from now?” he asks once they’re on the road.

She doesn’t answer at first, passes the time by kicking at the dirt, brushing up dust into the tall grass to her left. Her brow furrows at the question, because really, she doesn’t even know what’s going to happen tomorrow.

“I’ll still be here,” she says eventually. “Because let’s be real, I don’t think there’s much hope for me in that regard. Hopefully I’d be working in the Archives or have a Padawan of my own, as crazy as that seems. I don’t know. In the grand scheme of things? There’s no telling what’s going to—or what could—happen. I’d like to think it’s all good things, though.”

He quirks his lips to the side in an almost smile, he watches her for a second before turning his gaze back to the road. “Doesn’t that ever scare you, though? That we have no idea what’s going to happen like, ever.”

“Not your turn, Malak,” she says, but there’s nothing behind it. It’s that empty feeling again, like she might be a ghost and the world is moving through her. She might be a ghost and nothing can touch her. She might be a ghost, but Malak’s talking to her.

He doesn’t say anything though, just shakes his head and his lips stay where they are, right above his chin and below his nose, and the corners might tip up a little but it’s his eyes that tell her he’s wearing a bit thin on this game.

“Does it scare _you_?” she asks, like she doesn’t know the answer, like it’s not enough to just say it, but that she needs him to say something back. Back and forth, this game, her life, it’s all a bit convenient.

“Quite, yeah,” he answers. “Just—there’s so much out there? And like, I don’t want to miss something by limiting myself, and I don’t want to wind up somewhere I don’t want to be because I wasn’t paying attention. It’s like I think there’s these things I can control, but when it comes down to it, I wonder whether or not the outcome of our lives has anything to do with us at all.”

Revan lets out a steady breath as she considers it. “I hope it does,” she says, and the words sound too loud in the quiet morning air. “Destiny—the whole idea of it. I just, I hate it. I hate it so much.”

When she glances back up at him his eyes are wide, his lips pressed together and the crease that meets between his brows looks even deeper in the odd lighting. “You really feel that strongly about it?” he asks.

“No it’s just—yeah. I guess I’m a bit sick of the idea that life is laid out for us all nice and neat, like we don’t even have to try to do anything.”

He frowns. “What happened?” he asks, eyes cautious. “Earlier tonight, I meant. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”

“Yeah, um, no. I mean, yeah I probably shouldn’t be telling anyone but you know. It’s just—a lot’s happened with Kae since you left.”

He doesn’t say anything and at first she’s content to let it go. The silence stretches on though, and she can feel the words edging past her lips before she can stop them. “She leaves. She doesn’t answer me when I ask where she’s going, just says that she has to go off planet. And I mean, okay, whatever, but she’s gone for _months_ , you know? I don’t know how I’m supposed to deal with that.”

She pauses and Malak doesn’t say anything. He opens the door to the Enclave for her, though, and she thanks him quietly before they move through the silent hallways. It’s only been a few days since they last walked to her room together, but it feels different now. The sky is kind of colorless in that way when the sun and moon are both missing and it’s nice in a strange way, like it's something she needs right now.

She lets them both into her room, closes the door behind Malak and leaves the lights off. When she turns around he’s standing in the middle of the room and she smiles at the way it looks smaller surrounding him, he’s too tall, and she tells him as such before she reaches below her bed.

Malak’s eyes are intent on the box in her hands and she waits for him to look up, smiling at the intent expression sitting on his strong features. He does, eventually, and his lips part but he lets his gaze drop back down to her hands as she pushes past all the junk she’s kept for no reason, fingers wrapping around the thin leather bracelet.

He smiles the moment he sees it, and he holds out his hand. Revan runs her thumb along the delicate braid before passing it to him. It looks small in his hands, and she knows it’s just a bracelet but it makes her a little sad. Mostly for all the differences. No matter how hard she tries she can’t just pretend that nothing’s happened in the past five years. Malak’s hand is too big.

“Who’s turn is it?” he asks.

“I don’t remember,” she says, looking up to meet his eyes. “But I don’t have any more questions, so if you want, just like, go for it.” It’s one of those things that she feels dumb for saying out loud but he doesn’t seem to be phased by it, he just watches her for a moment before looking back down.

“What happened with Kae?” he asks.

“I don’t know,” she says automatically. “Vrook said she’s being put on trial tomorrow—today, whatever—and I just really, really don’t know what’s going on.”

She doesn’t want to watch the way his face twists in confusion or sadness or whatever it is, but the mood is weird anyways so she makes herself. The corners of his lips are turned down, his brows drawn together and she doesn’t quite look at his eyes because she doesn’t want to know what’s going to be there. She doesn’t want to know anything, at this point.

“I’m sorry,” is what he says, like it’s his fault or something. “I can’t even imagine what that feels like.”

She half smiles down at her hands. “Yeah, you and me both.”

He hesitates. “Were you happy to see me again?” he asks, quietly, and she meets his eyes this time, she doesn’t know what’s there but she finds herself nodding.

“Of course,” she says. “You were my best friend, Mal.”

He quirks his lips to the side but he nods, and it’s suddenly very obvious that it’s just them in her room and the sun is really starting to rise, hazy pink falling in through the window above where they’re sitting.

“Yeah,” he says eventually, but it feels more like an afterthought. It makes her smile though, and maybe she doesn’t feel as hopeless as she probably should. Right now, though, right now she has the sun and no sleep, she has a boy who still knows her better than most, and she has these last few moments of normality, as normal as it is.

And soon she’ll have answers.


End file.
